Non-lethal weapons technology has been utilized for incapacitating individuals for the purposes of for instance, crowd rejection or perimeter personnel control. One would like to be able to prevent people from attacking or harassing individuals so that they cannot get any closer than one would like for personal safety. In the past, systems have utilized RF waves to make an individuals skin feel as if it is burning up; and some systems utilize short intense laser beams which irradiate the skin to make one think that the skin is burning.
Crowd control has also been attempted utilizing acoustic means for projecting loud music or sounds. However, such systems require an inordinate amount of antenna space and power. While lasers are good because one can focus the beam very precisely and projected with pinpoint accuracy and high powered lasers are not eye-safe and can be dangerous, especially with unintended or accidental deployment of a laser beam.
Thus, laser beams that are utilized to countermeasure people or systems cause permanent injury to individuals in the path of the laser beam.
Moreover, with respect to RF crowd control systems, the amount of power to dissuade a crowd is enormous and requires a very large antenna system to produce a focused RF beam at any reasonable distance. Such systems also require kilowatts of power because RF protons are very weak.
Additionally, for non-lethal crowd control and the like, so-called rubber bullets or tasers have been utilized as non-lethal means for such applications. However, rubber bullets can in fact do permanent damage and tasers have been known to so completely incapacitate an individual that permanent damage also occurs.
There is therefore a need to provide a non-lethal means for incapacitating individuals which results in temporary disorientation and discomfort without causing permanent damage to the individual.
Such systems short of permanently maiming or killing an individual are important to be able to interdict individuals not utilizing lethal weapons, such as individuals throwing rocks and the like at the police and military personnel.
By way of further background and more particularly with respect to eye-safe lasers, typical eye safety occurs at wavelengths roughly around 1.5 microns and longer. The reason that such wavelengths do not damage the eye is that the aqueous humor or vitreous humor of the eye contain close to 90% water that absorbs the laser beam before a laser beam can hit the retina. Note that it is the retina where nerve receptors of the eye are located and permanent damage can be done to the retina because once the retina has any nerve damage it is not repairable.
While 1.5 microns is considered to be in the near infrared, it is important to note that the eye generally shuts off at around 0.8 microns so that anything that is almost twice as long will not be observable by the naked eye. When one reaches 0.8 microns images become extremely red and all of a sudden they simply disappear once one is in the infrared.
In laser systems for instance involving laser target designation, one does not simply want to spray friendlies with laser radiation that could damage their eyes.
For laser target designators or laser range finders the infrared band that one operates in is longer than the 1.5 micron radiation described above. Note that at 1.5 microns the energy of the waves is absorbed by the eye in a gradual fashion typically over a centimeter within the eye.
Thus for radiation in the 1.5 micron region as a beam comes in and hits the cornea, goes through the cornea and eventually in another couple of millimeters or a centimeter gets absorbed, there is no large temperature increase at the retina. In short, at 1.5 microns one does not have intense volumetric heat.
Having described various methods of incapacitating individuals, what is required is a safer and at the same time more disorienting method for crowd control or incapacitating individuals.